Journey - Time 3 (1992)

JOURNEY is a American band who started playing in the early months of '73 in San Francisco. The music of JOURNEY is divided in 2 parts, the one from early 1973 'till 1977 when guitarist Neal Schon and keyboardist Gregg Rolie, both of Santana fame, met with bassist Ross Valory and drummer Prairie Prince from The Tubes (replaced later by Aynsley Dunbar) in the summer of 1974. Their music back then was jazz rock with progressive elements and fusion interplays , instrumental passages being pretty much top notch thanks to Neal Schon's driving riffs and solid bass lines of Valory, while the keyboards (still mostly the Hammond organ) of Rollie was something "á la Santana" but less latino-inspired.

In the first period the vocal parts were done by Gregg Rollie and sometimes by Schon. In this line-up Journey was recorded, in 1975. But since the mid '70's was no more a period of jazz rock or progressive music, these musical styles being considered uninteresting. Journey's first 3 albums (Journey from 1975, Look into the future 1976 and Next 1977) sold very poorly and largely ignored by the public and mass media. Their CBS label also initially expecyted sales in the Santana range.

This thing will change next year, in 1978, when it is considered that the band stepped into a new period, the second one. After three albums that were considered dissapointing sales-wise, but were in fact Journey's most progressive ones from the entire discography, Journey hired a better vocalist - Steve Perry. Actually the change was mostly enforced by CBS, or else they would drop the band's recording contract. The results were immediately felt on the fourth album, Infinity, released in 1978, who was sold in over one million copies, more than the previous albums altogether. But the sound changes were almost dramatic. From that jazz-fusion progressive music they turned in an AOR - hard rock band, not far from what FOREIGNER, STYX or BOSTON played during the same period.

Dunbar left because of this new musical direction (rumours is that he was fired for his British rowdiness and backstage antics) and was replaced by Steve Smith. The next albums Evolution (1979) and Departure (1980) had a similar success, and Journey released hit after hit. In this time Rolie was replaced by Jonathan Cain. The peak of their career was and remains the most sold album of the band Escape from 1981, with no less that 9 million records sold world wide, and with hits like Don't stop belivin and Open arms. The next album, Frontiers (1983) is in the same vein with the predecessor,less inspiring musically but with great public succes . Another album, Raised on radio (1986), was also their last, the band disbanding after; the comeback happened in 1996, when they returned with the album Trial by fire. In 1998 Steve Perry was replaced by Steve Augeri and more albums were released on the market (Arrival in 2000 and Generation in 2003, the latter being an 30th aniversary album). After this the band hired another vocalist, Arnel Pined, and stepped into a new era with the album Revelation. In this decade the group fulfilled what seems to have been a lifelong ambition, keeping the hard rock AOR Journey legend alive and on the barricades.